


Bruise

by tzigane, Zaganthi (Caffiends)



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dark, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutilation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-11-05
Updated: 2007-11-05
Packaged: 2017-10-26 23:43:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/289197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tzigane/pseuds/tzigane, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caffiends/pseuds/Zaganthi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A check-over, a checkup, not done by a doctor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bruise

**Skin** against **skin** was a pure sensation. It was fulfilling, enthralling, the feeling of fingertips sliding over his neck, lingering against one nipple, dragging over his ribs in scorching lines. There was always that examination, broad palms testing that his fingers worked despite things, that PT had helped him completely reclaim that where it wasn't capable of doing other things. A check-over, a checkup, not done by a doctor. He could approve of that, because the intimate testing that he was all there in body was comfortable, a distraction after a day spent typing too much, thinking too hard, a massage that was light, caring. Fingertips left kisses where John's mouth didn't often tread, lingering against his lips, pressing against them, one sliding briefly in before pulling out, slipping damp- **skin** ned to his hairline just to stop and pet there, soothing him. He kept his eyes closed so he didn't see John's parted lips, the mimicry of motions made in silence that he was making himself. Oh, there was noise, but noise wasn't anything like words, like the usual casual completely underappreciated method of communication.

He refused to make half-noises, refused to get by with grunts and ape-noises. John didn't ask him to, didn't speak when they were like that, and that made things better.

That made things okay.

Anything was better than waking up in isolation, Carson looking at him over the edge of his surgical mask and explaining gently, oh so very disturbingly gently, what had gone on.

Everything that had gone missing.

He didn't think about it. Ever. Well, only every time he wanted to scream at his staff, and every time he undressed. That wasn't so much, was it? Not really, not in the long run, not when he could think about it all the time, even when he was with John.

John was beautiful, and he understood and he didn't understand at the same time. He understood enough to know that there was nothing on Earth for him, and he'd sworn up and down in paperwork and in a report that _'McKay'_ \-- always a last name, never a title and last name, which was just to make him twitch because he had enough degrees to deserve the doctor -- was more than fit to serve the Atlantis expedition, but it didn't change the reality of what had happened.

It didn't matter whether he was or not, exactly. It didn't matter because they never left anyone behind, and sending Rodney back to Earth would be a form of exile. John would never do that to him, no matter what he was missing, and no matter how much he did or didn't comprehend exactly what had happened.

John had seen it -- seen it, partaken of the fruit of it -- but he'd been drugged so deep his eyeballs had been swimming, and they'd had to open his mouth to slip the taste of it inside.

Radek had muttered about bad movies and sweet meats and Rodney knew what had happened but he didn't think about it, didn't let it filter into his consciousness because John was kissing at his stomach, his reward at the end of a long day. It had gone on too long, one of those days where nothing horrible and earth shattering went wrong, but four different internal systems of extreme tedium and wiring in small spaces had broken down. It was a 10,000 year old plus city, he thought to himself.

It went wrong. But at least Atlantis never went as wrong as field work.

That was something Rodney was never doing again. Not ever. Ever.

"Soft," John murmured down below, stubble scraping just beneath Rodney's navel, his lips pressing to the pudge of Rodney's belly. It was something he did almost every night, and that was just the way Rodney liked it.

He let himself exhale, breathe out, because it was a noise that didn't take effort or sound distorted in his mouth. Rodney was getting better, he knew it, but life between then and this moment was now, real, present, something he couldn't live through on a slip of hope and a handful of promises and memories of Carson's muffled words to him about treatments.

John opened his mouth, kissed and sucked to no real purpose. Just lazy, familiar touches on yielding flesh, slipping further down and making Rodney sigh again, a low, steady susurration of sound that made John look up at him as if to ask what he wanted. John knew, of course. He always did, and the caress of his fingers down the crease of Rodney's thigh gave it to him.

Rodney deserved that. He deserved John touching, John's fingers sliding and dragging over his **skin** , making it impossible for him to keep still, making it impossible for him not to shift his legs, spreading. Opening up bare scarred **skin** , and letting John touch, just _there_.

There, and that was something no one knew about, or at least very few people. Silent McKay was terrifying enough in the minds of most of Atlantis.

A McKay with no balls... Well. That was the kind of thing they sent a man home over, and everyone had agreed that it was best if that was kept as quiet as possible. Carson knew. Radek. Elizabeth. General O'Neill, and that had made Rodney just a bit twitchy.

O'Neill had commented that it was almost normal for the SGC. That he'd been through hell and back himself and that they had a couple of medical things they could try at Atlantis, so he might as well stay there. The words were still there in his head, and the treatment was taking its courses with Carson's careful monitoring. He didn't check, didn't look for himself. He could feel a little more tongue in his mouth than there had been. He didn't look to see if the scarred tissue was any different.

He didn't feel to see if things down below were filling out at all.

John did that for him, smiling and nuzzling, licking him in a way that was almost sweet. He should have found that more disturbing than he did, but what he did and didn't find disturbing these days was often tempered by the faint hazy memories of feverish days, nasal cannula in place, everyone coming in and out wearing gowns and particulate respirators. He remembered John and golden firelight, the way it flitted over him in licks of light and shadow, the steady solid writhe of his body under the influence of whatever they'd fed all of them earlier.

The two sets of memories overlapped, twisted together, enough to make Rodney wonder sometimes which one had come first -- the panic and the surgical masks and the choking on his own blood feeling, or John, lazy over top of him, low noises coming from the corner of the room.

Teyla didn't look at Ronon quite the same anymore, and Rodney half remembered why. Half. But he liked the private reenactment of those blurred moments, savored the feel of John's mouth on his **skin**. They'd had sex before, harried after-a-mission fucking, blowjobs and jibes in the dark after a close call or a boring -- when that happened-- day, and Rodney had always thought of it as convenience.

There was nothing convenient about this. No one looked. They didn't ask, and they didn't tell, and they didn't say anything about it when the _Daedalus_ was in port. It was their business -- John's, Rodney's, Atlantis's -- not anyone else's. Before, they wouldn't have dared to walk into their quarters in the dark of night without looking three times, checking the life signs, no matter whether whose set of quarters it was, or if it was any empty closet.

Now, they strolled through the halls side-by-side in broad daylight. They didn't look, and no one looked at them, at least not for those reasons. They didn't look because there was nothing to see but Doctor McKay who worked in silence and Colonel Sheppard talking enough for the both of them, close friends. If anyone knew anything else, well, they kept their mouths shut tighter than Rodney did.

It was better that way, better for all of them. If newcomers didn't know who was responsible for saving their asses, members of the original expedition made sure that they knew. They didn't ask questions about things that were none of their business after that.

John's mouth was hot and wet on the inside of Rodney's thighs, his tongue sliding towards his ass. Rodney opened, because that was what he did now. That was the pleasure he had left, considering all of the other things they had taken.

He could, would, be open for John, be willing and enjoy it, because there was nothing to find objectionable about the lingering touch of John's fingers spreading his ass, lips lingering against his asshole before John's tongue came out again.

There was a broad swipe, the way John always started, and then the tip would come back to play, teasing and licking at him. Rodney couldn't help the wiggle he made, the movement, not when he wanted to press up to that mouth, and John let him. John let him, but he pulled back his tongue and went at Rodney with just his lips, tormenting him.

It left him bowed in half bent up and twisted and too drifty and pleased with what John was doing. It wasn't that he was used to it, it was just the same stable simple pattern, the same motions that eased him back, made it easier to handle the shit that the day threw at him that hadn't always gotten to him before. If they had, at least he'd had a mechanism for releasing the pressure back then, hands and mouth and speech and John.

 _John_.

John, spearing into him with tongue and fingers, and if he could still come, Rodney would probably be covered in salty streaks of it at the moment.

He couldn't. He could sort of feel like it, feel close to it, but there was never the release he was used to, just the wound up sensation shivering off into sensitivity, but it was worth it. It still felt good, as good as John's side against his leg, as good as hands on his ass. As good as John toying with him before he finally fucked him.

That was something. That was so _good_ , and Carson promised, he'd promised with that mask over his mouth, sworn up and down that they'd be able to regenerate the tissue, that it would _work_ , that it would be _perfect_ , and Rodney believed. He believed because he had to, because it was that or go crazy, and then John was over him and _in_ , in him, wild and beautiful, all broad shoulders and wet, red mouth.

He kissed him, lips against his mouth, and Rodney struggled with that more than he struggled with the way his back was going to hurt after a fucking like that. John rocked in and out of his ass, angling for Rodney's prostate, angling to make him shake and lose control, but that didn't happen until there was a press of tongue against his lips, John probing and letting himself into Rodney's mouth.

Letting himself into emptiness, creating something from nothing, oh, god, that was the hardest part. Letting him touch the emptiness below, fill him, create fullness, that was easy. Permitting him entrance to the vacant hollow of his mouth, that was harder, and it made Rodney whine, whimper, plead despite himself.

He did and he didn't want it, John's kisses like that, the way his tongue slid over teeth, made Rodney's mouth feel too much and mourn the loss, the feeling of bare wet friction against an aching stub, the bare remains.

"Beautiful," John whispered against his mouth. "Love this." Love _you_ , he didn't say, but he meant it. God, he meant it, and Rodney couldn't stop the way he clenched around John's cock, almost, almost, almost feeling it.

Rodney could still feel. He could feel and he could think, and they hadn't taken that from him. He curled his hands against John's back, palms spread out, breathing hard and feeling John's damp **skin**. They hadn't taken John from him, couldn't take John from him, beautiful John, John who had been tucked away into what could only be termed a harem, John who had come away covered in blood in the end because he'd killed to get to Rodney after what they'd done to him.

After what they'd done to all of them.

John moved a little more, a sensation that twinged his ass, but it was the softening kiss that kept his attention, the feel of John's mouth against his. It was good, so good, and the gentled rock of John's hips, the way he sighed and laid his head against Rodney's shoulder, it was breathtaking. So fine, and Rodney brought his hands up, cupped a shoulder with one, the back of John's neck with the other.

Sweaty and warm and familiar. He could smell it in the air, could tell before John started that John was going to pull back, press kisses against Rodney's mouth but stop intruding, gentling them both down. Rodney had stopped being frustrated with the release he could get. There was no sense in being one hundred percent angry all the time. No reason for it, not when he had John there, in his arms. Not when day-by-day, torture-by-torture, visits with people in surgical masks, things were growing back into place. He could tell by the nod of John's head, by the nub that he could feel press against his soft palate now and then, by the stroke of John's tongue in him and outside of him.

John pulled out only when softening started to slide towards half hard, or half willing, or a piss hardon. Rodney wasn't sure, but John got up, and came back with a wash rag just when Rodney was getting close to drifting off. There was a lazy luxury in lying in bed after sex like that, savoring the warm spot more than the wet spot.

There were worse things in the world, he supposed. There were worse things than being here, parts of himself lost, with John pressing against his side, **skin** and hair and heat.

He was clean and tired and worn out enough to sleep. John pulled at the blankets. The morning would start with another visit with Carson, another day of working on fine-tuning the city.

Another day of growing back the parts of him they'd cut out, with John by his side.


End file.
